An apparatus of enhanced data security obtained by authenticating that a user is a prescribed user and so arranging it that the authenticated user can gain access is known in the art. Such an apparatus may have a plurality of authentication mechanisms for authenticating the user, not just a single authentication mechanism. These authentication mechanisms can be arranged hierarchically and, before a higher-order authentication mechanism is utilized, a lower-order authentication mechanism is employed to authenticate a user, or the plurality of authentication mechanisms can be arranged in parallel, any of the plurality of authentication mechanisms can be selected without authentication of the user, and user authentication is performed using the authentication mechanism that has been selected.
However, such prior art involves problems in terms of convenience and security. For example, with the hierarchical arrangement of the authentication mechanisms, it is necessary to provide user authentication information whenever the authentication mechanism of each layer is started up. This is a troublesome operation. With the parallel arrangement of the authentication mechanisms, the authentication mechanism is changed over without authentication of the user. Though this facilitates operation, a problem which arises is a commensurate decline in reliability in terms of security.
The present invention has been devised in view of these examples of the prior art and, in order to solve the problems involving convenience and security, is so adapted as to prompt the provision of authentication information when an authentication-mechanism changeover function is utilized.
Further, an object of the present invention is to verify authentication by a new authentication mechanism, before an authentication mechanism is changed over, in order to avoid a situation in which an apparatus can no longer be used because a user does not happen to have suitable authentication information after an authentication mechanism is changed over.